


A Little Death

by lapetitemort20



Series: Death of The Endless [1]
Category: Figure Skating RPF, Virtue Moir RPF
Genre: Ballet Dancer Tessa Virtue, Based on Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, Death, Existential fic, F/M, Originally a #Spooktober fic, Scott Moir/OC (kind of), Singles Skater Scott Moir, sandman au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 01:14:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22007539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapetitemort20/pseuds/lapetitemort20
Summary: Every 100 years, Death becomes mortal for a day.
Relationships: Scott Moir & Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir/Tessa Virtue
Series: Death of The Endless [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1584133
Comments: 10
Kudos: 36





	A Little Death

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for #Spooktober but I wanted to post it as a series because, surprise, I couldn’t leave this ‘verse! If you haven’t read it the first time round I hope you love it. If this is your second time reading it, I hope you still love it. 
> 
> It’s highly personal to me, so I hope you feel the care I put into crafting this story. Thanks go to RookandPawn who helped me brainstorm the events of the fic, you’re amazing, my friend! This could not be as special as it is without your input 😘

Death, they say, is the Four Riders of the Apocalypse. They, whoever they are, couldn’t have been more wrong.

Death comes in the form of a woman. Known also as Grandmother Death, Teleute or Madame Mort, she is far from the lone scythe-wielding Grim Reaper persona one has become accustomed to.

First of all, she doesn’t appear old, even if she is the second eldest, and perhaps most important of The Endless. 

Secondly, she’s never really alone. As she fulfils her duty, oftentimes she will come across her siblings. Dream, with his dark hair and even darker eyes, giving either a sense of calm for the end, or the regrets and nightmares known only to Morpheus and the dying. Destiny who charts all that is and all that will happen in his heavy book of fate. Many times it is Despair. Sometimes it is Delirium who accompanies her. The worst is usually Destruction, in times of conquest, plague and famine. 

*** 

An older lady is lying in bed with her daughter stroking her paralysed arm. It’s a small gesture, caring and tender, but futile. The lady is in the terminal stages of pancreatic cancer and she hasn’t got long left.

“Do you think there’s work out there for someone like me?” 

Her daughter looks up, curious. “What do you mean, Mom? You don’t need the money. We’ve taken care of everything for you.”

“My life has amounted to nothing,” her voice cracks. “I just want to make it count before I leave this world.”

Her daughter grips the hand she’s holding tightly, her heart breaking, not for the first time. They’ve had their issues, mother and daughter, a history wrought with alcohol abuse and neglect, but impending death brings perspective, maybe even forgiveness. 

“How can you say that? You’ve raised three strong daughters on your own, in a time where it wasn’t acceptable for a woman to do so. We’re your greatest legacy!” she whispers fiercely.

A long pause. The old lady makes a soft choking sound, as if she’s trying to hold in a sob, “I never really saw it that way.”

They hold each other, in a fragile moment of peace. When she falls asleep the daughter steps in to the bathroom. She weeps unabashedly not only for her dying mother and the squandered years, intellect and talent she grieves for, but also for her own. She’s 38, with a young child, a cheating husband, and no claim to any personal achievement - on track to replicating this exact scene 40 years later.

She dries her eyes and walks down the street from the apartment to a café next door. The barista who serves her is a slim, dark-haired beauty with otherworldly green eyes and an unusual tattoo under her right eye.

When she receives her flat white coffee to go, the girl says, “Hey, take a fortune cookie.”

When she breaks it open back in the apartment, the daughter sucks in a sharp breath, because the words read: _Death gives time all its value_.

Two days later, her mother passes away. One year on, the daughter has separated from her husband, moved countries with her son, and is on her way to fulfilling her dream as a filmmaker.

***

She’s a delicate thing. With dark honeyed skin, and a shock of silver hair crowning her sharp features. Her eyes are swollen and rimmed red, she’s sobbing as if her heart were clawing out of her chest, trying to escape the pain that’s bigger than her frame. She’s currently pumping her breast discreetly beneath her shirt, the demands of her 8-week postpartum body not understanding the crisis at hand. She curls tightly into the hard backed chair almost willing it to swallow her whole.

“Are you losing somebody?”

“Excuse me?”

The gothic creature looks around them. It’s a hospital after all.

“My baby boy. He’s in surgery right now.”

“Ah, they’re removing his atypical choroid plexus papilloma? Don’t worry - he’s going to be peachy keen. It isn’t his time,” she shrugs.

The elfin-like woman just shakes her head in disbelief, her body wracking with convulsive gasps. “How- how do you know?”

“I just do. Do you trust me?”

There’s a weak nod in reply.

“Make sure you notice the collateral beauty of things around you.” And with that, she’s gone, a sound of beating wings left in her wake. 

Seven hours later, her son is wheeled out of the operation theatre, alive, awake and breathing on his own. He spends four days in the Children’s Intensive Care Unit fighting seizures from the swelling in his brain, a continuous fever, and a blood clot in his femoral artery.

The doctors say the operation was a success. The tumour has been removed completely, and from the looks of it, is benign.

A temporary catheter is placed in order to drain the build up of cerebrospinal fluid from his brain, but the valve means she’s only allowed to take him off it for 20 minutes over the course of 24 hours to breastfeed him in case the hydrocephalic pressure builds up.

She’s never been religious, but she places her faith in the words of this figure cloaked in black, and prays to a god she doesn’t believe in. She begs to be taken instead of her child if it means a moment less of his suffering.

His condition improves, and two weeks after he’s been moved to normal ward care, he’s back home.

Alive. Well. _Peachy keen_.

And oblivious to the battle he has won.

***

“Hey Al,” she calls out.

She gave him a fright. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said she popped up like Death. “You? What are you doing here?” he mumbles.

“I’m here for you, of course,” she smiles brightly.

“Where are we going?”

She looks a little different than when he saw her last. Then, she wore her hair short in a shaggy pixie cut. Now she has long, glamorous waves. It’s a glow up. She looks beautiful, but then again, she always did. Back then he was ready to go, sought it out, even welcomed it, but she didn’t take him. Refused to. Told him he had a lot more to do with his life.

“Well now, that’s not for me to decide. But _you_ know. It was your life, only you know what you did with it,” she reasons.

“It was a good life,” he says, talking to no one in particular.

And it was. After his brush with her, he was reminded of why life was beautiful. He stopped the drugs, the reckless sex with both women and men, the savagery, the addiction to pain and anger, got clean and dedicated his life to his art. When people say there’s a fine line between genius and madness, they’re not wrong. But the genius that you tap into when you’re lucid and sober is the closest to paradise he’s ever been.

He’s been spending the past 57 years chasing that high. And he’s never been more fulfilled. It feels a shame to stop now.

“It’ll be a good death too,” she promises. “Spectacular, even.”

He trusts her. She’s glad that he does. So many fear her, even when they don’t need to. Even when they’ve spent their entire lives dying to meet her.

She takes her role as a psychopomp very seriously. She’s there at everyone’s birth, and so too is she for their demise. He deserves a good sending off, especially for one as theatrical as him. Even those who don’t, merit a fitting end.

The crash is everything she promised him it would be. It’s a six car pile up on an interstate highway, complete with a fire that takes the firefighters three hours to put out. There are others who lose their lives too, she’s there with each and every one of them.

When the world learns of his passing, they mourn. They grieve for the sagacity of Alistair King, one of the greatest stage actors of his time.

***

Every century there comes a very special day. It’s the day that Death takes a holiday. Well, it’s not quite a holiday. But it is a break from her morbid duties.

You know how some cultures celebrate the day of the dead? Well, for her it’s the day of mortality. A day for living.

It’s the day she trades her immortality to taste the bitter tang of the power she wields and the high cost of taking a life. 

She loves this day. She looks forward to it every hundred years. It’s when she can truly walk amongst the beings she’s become so fond of. She’s privy to so much - their hopes, dreams, disappointments, remorse, anger, passion, the complete range of their human condition.

But it’s an entirely different thing to actually live it.

She’s sitting on the side of a fountain right at the peak of Mont Royal Park. It’s early, too early for the mothers and children to be out on their play dates, but late enough for the gung-ho wannabe marathon runners training for some new-fangled rat race to be clocking in their miles.

She supposes she’s a bit overdressed for the morning, in her top hat and black leather jacket over a crop top, matched with a tulle skirt and cage heels, but what the hell. This day is like her birthday. You can bet your ass she’s going to have bells on. 

She hears him before she sees him. You couldn’t _not_ hear him. There’s a flurry of curses coming from his mouth because he’s just bumped into a trash bin and nearly tipped into the fountain.

He’s drunk, of course. Or more accurately, he’s coming off a huge hangover from carousing like a fiend from the night before. How he ended up here is anyone’s guess.

“Ouch.” He groans and rubs his head as he crumples down the side of the fountain.

It’s quiet for a while, but then she hears a sniffle. _Is he weeping_?

“Are you - are you alright?” she asks kindly, after an appropriate amount of time.

He jumps and scrambles up in surprise. “Fuck, I didn’t see anyone there! Jesus, warn a guy, would ya?”

He rubs his face to wipe his tears. He had been weeping.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He peers at her curiously, no doubt taking in her strange get up and the tattoo beneath her eye. “Well, you did,” he spits out rather maliciously. “What were you doing anyway?”

“I was busy minding my own business until you disturbed me,” she points out.

He opens his mouth as if to say something but then thinks the better of it.

They sit together quietly for a while. 

The sky is deepening into a dark velvet black, the kind of inky darkness that comes just before the burnished light of magic hour. The view from the belvedere over the city skyline is close to preternatural. For now, he bites his tongue from the rush of questions he has. 

They watch how night slips off her blanket of stars, only to reveal a gentle golden glow, with rays of light painting her surroundings in pinks, oranges and purples. It only takes a few minutes for the world to transform, but _l’aube_ is the beauty of hope. That things can be renewed once again.

He clears his throat as if to say something. 

She sighs dreamily. Then turns to him as if she’s just made a decision. 

She has. 

“You’ll do,” she states. 

“I’ll do what?” he asks, confused.

“You’ll be my guide for the day.”

“Wha-? Do I look like some kind of tourist guide?” He’s sobering up quite quickly now.

He reminds her of her brother Dream in some ways. Those dark, intense eyes and feeling entirely too much beneath the surface yet pretending not to. But that’s where the similarities stop. She knows where she recognises him from now. She’s taken a few beloved from him through the years.

His brother, his best friend, his grandfather.

She remembers, because she was there.

After the second time, he took the cross off from the silver necklace he wears around his neck. He doesn’t believe in God anymore.

Symbols are important. They carry a sense of power. She, for instance, has an ankh that sways between her small breasts. An important part of ancient Egyptian iconography, it signifies the power to sustain life and to revive human souls in the afterlife. It’s apt after all. Death isn’t an ending like everyone thinks. She’s a door to another realm. 

“What’s your name?” he asks, when it’s clear that she’s ignored his previous question. 

“I don’t have one. I mean, I do...but I’d much rather you give me one. What do you think my name should be?”

 _Who doesn’t have a name_? This gothic figure is so strange but intriguing. It helps that she’s fucking beautiful too, so he decides to humour the mad (wo)man.

He thinks about the little girl who chose ballet over ice dancing with him all those years ago. His best friend, the one he’s never seen since. Except she’s now Canada’s most famous prima ballerina. So technically he has seen her, just only on TV, billboards, magazines and all over the internet. It’s funny, but this strange woman clothed in black looks uncannily like her. 

“Tessa. Everyone should have a Tessa.” 

“I love it!” she claps her hands in glee. “What a fantabulous name!”

“Don’t you want to know mine?”

“But I already do, Scott.”

His eyes go large, his expressive brows lifting in a mixture of fear and skepticism. He swears he didn’t introduce himself at any moment during this bizarre encounter. _How hungover is he_?

She senses his perturbation. “Can I let you in on a little secret?” 

He nods, still unsure.

“I’m actually Death. It’s nice to meet you!” she sticks out her hand.

Okay, now he’s certain she belongs in the loony bin.

“Sure you are. And I’m Justin Trudeau.” He doesn’t take her hand.

“No you’re not, although you have great hair too. You’re Scott Moir. Three-time Olympic gold and two-time Olympic silver medallist, not to mention World Champion, eight-time Canadian champion and only male figure skater to achieve a Career Super Grand Slam winning in both Junior and Senior divisions,” she reels off.

 _She’s just confirmed that she’s a stalker too_ , he thinks.

“Alright, just wait a minute. Who put you up to this? Was it one of the guys last night? They paid you to freak me out a little?”

She’s biting her lip, cocking her head to the side, her gaze diamond hard, but amused.

If it were under any other circumstances, he’d say she was his type. She’s gorgeous and quirky, with a tumble of espresso curls beneath her top hat, crystalline green eyes, slight but strong frame, an unusual spiral tattoo beneath her right eye, and a rock chick aesthetic.

Except his type doesn’t include being a deluded stan. He’s just very recently found himself single, having broken an engagement with a woman he knows isn’t The One. It was mostly his fault though, jumping into a relationship right in the throes of a post-Olympic crash, leading himself to believe she might have been able to fulfil his dreams of a family. Hence the drunken night and eventual tears.

He’s definitely not looking for a rebound or casual thing. Or god forbid, a long-term relationship.

“Nope.”

“Okay...If you’re Death, and let’s just say I believe you for a moment, and you know everything...do you know if I’ve made the right choice?”

“There are no wrong or right choices. Only the choices you can live with. Can you live with this one?” 

And there it is. The question of the century.

He doesn’t answer, not knowing what he feels about it all. 

“Right!” she gets up suddenly. “I think it’s time for breakfast. But first, you’re going to go home and get showered. Because I can smell you from here, and I’m not going around the entire day with someone who reeks of alcohol.”

He has the decency to look embarrassed. “Sorry, it was kind of a rough night.” He stands up and shoves his hands in his pockets, “I guess we’re doing this then.”

He doesn’t know what compels him to say yes to her, but he suspects she tends to have that effect on people. He supposes that he’s made enough ridiculous choices in the past little while, what’s another one more?

They walk down the hill and across Downtown Montreal in silence until they get to his place. He’s thinking about what she said in reference to making choices he can live with. Are they the samechoices that will make him happy? 

He jumps into the shower once he gets home. He’s feeling a little tired from being out all night, but the cold water jolts him out of his torpor. This day should be interesting. It already is.

She’s looking through some of his things when he comes out to the living room, pulling a henley shirt over his head.

“Is this her?” she fingers a photo frame that’s tucked away behind several bigger photos of his Olympic wins.

“Who?”

“Your Tessa.”

“Ummm yes. I forgot I had that.”

“She’s very pretty,” she traces her finger across the little girl’s face. The young boy and girl in the photo are in a dance hold, on skates.

“She was brilliant. She still is.”

“But you don’t talk to her anymore. Why is that?” 

He runs his hands through his hair. He really should get a haircut. “Because she left? And I was alone after that?”

“Why do you still have this photo then? If it makes you unhappy?”

“Because it reminds me of a happier time.” 

“So you should go find it again,” she says lightly.

***

He’s never seen such a tiny person eat so much. They’re at St-Viateur, which is famed for their Montreal bagels, poached in honey-infused boiling water then baked in a wood-fire oven. He doesn’t know if Death ever eats, so he’s decided to give her a chance to explore one of city’s specialties. So far she’s already worked her way through three different types of bagel sandwiches, a white mochaccino, a chai latte, a healthy berry breakfast smoothie, a milk chocolate millefeuille cake slice, a maple syrup donut and is currently munching her weight in sugar buns.

“Yum, I’m taking these to go!” she muffles, with her mouth full.

“You should probably take it easy on those. Wouldn’t want you getting a sugar high or anything,” he snarks, impressed, and a little shocked, by the way she scarfs down the sweet stuff. 

“Oh gimme a break, this is a once-in-a-century type thing,” she says while licking her fingers clean.

“Are you any good at it?” he asks suddenly, as the thought occurs to him.

“You mean eating? Or being Death?”

“The Death thing,” he leans forward to whisper conspiratorially. “You might not want to advertise that too loudly, by the way.”

She winks. “I’m excellent at it. I would even say perfect, except perfection doesn’t exist. Perfectionism is just an haute couture term for fear.”

Huh. He could have used that wisdom bomb a while ago.

“Do you enjoy it? What you do? What exactly _do_ you do? Do you ever wonder if you do things simply because it’s expected of you, but then you have a feeling like there might be something else out there, but you just don’t know what it is?”

“Whoa, slow down there Sherlock. Those are a lot of deep questions. I thought you didn’t believe me.” Now it’s her turn to be sarcastic.

He feigns ignorance.

“To answer your first question, it’s who and what I am. I don’t know if I would say I enjoy it. It just is.”

He’s been lost, a ship unmoored and without a sail, since after the last Olympics. He’s never felt worthy of the fame or the achievements he has received, even as he can recognise how hard he’s worked for them. This past year has been a study in who he is without, and beyond, all of that, but he keeps coming up short.

“If there’s something I’ve learnt by watching mortals, it’s that not everyone is lucky enough to love what they do, but if they can find a way to do it well and then balance it out with something that feeds their soul, it’s still a life that’s worth living.”

“I’m not afraid to die, you know,” he says morosely. “I’m just afraid I haven’t lived enough.”

“Scott,” she takes a deep breath, like she’s about to tell him something important. “I’m not here to take you, if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

The lilt of her laughter lifts the heavy atmosphere.

She continues, “Look, as long as you don’t choose, everything remains possible. But where’s the fun in that? I read something recently - yes, I do read, I’m not a savage. Do what brings you to life. Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart.”

And with that, she asks for the bill, but they find out that their tab has already been paid for by a kindly elder gentleman who had been eating breakfast quietly in the corner.

They’re out on the street when she asks what’s next on their agenda. Scott smiles and tells her it’s a secret. They jump into an Uber and when they pull up to the Ice Academy of Montreal fifteen minutes later, Death squeals in delight.

“I’ve never gone ice skating before!”

“You’re in luck then, because I know a pretty good coach,” Scott winks. 

She trades her heels for skates once they’re inside and though she starts off a little shaky, after an hour Scott has already got her doing forward and backward cross rolls.

“Not bad, kiddo!” he gives her a high five. “Are you ready to try a basic lift?” 

He’s good at this teaching thing. He should be doing this professionally. It’s obvious how much he loves the ice and how easily he transfers his knowledge. 

“You couldn’t stop me if you tried!” She does a happy little jig on the ice, giddy with happiness, arms flailing, and almost slipping.

“Alright, alright, settle down. We’ll make an Olympic skater out of you yet!” he teases as he skates over to her and scoops her up in an easy bridal-type lift. She shrieks in joy. It’s intimate and close, and for the third time today he finds himself wondering what would have happened if his Tessa had stayed on to skate with him. 

They play for another hour together in private before a group of Pee Wee Hockey skaters come on the ice for practice. They’re so excited to see one of their Canadian heroes in the flesh and start crowding around him, begging him to show off his signature spread eagle, Ina Bauer and quad jumps. Scott doesn’t have the heart to refuse and spends another hour messing about, even joining the hockey coach to help the kids out.

When he’s finally done, he lands in a contented heap where Death has been watching from the sidelines. 

“Are you happy?” she asks. 

“Very much so.” 

“It isn’t what calls you, you know,” she grins. “It’s what you answer to.”

He has to let that sink in for a minute before he understands that she’s talking about the choices which will make him happy; the ones that will cause a revolution.

***

Because she had so much to eat at breakfast, Scott decides they’ll drop by Lester’s later that afternoon for take out. It’s one of the finest hot smoked meat sandwiches in town and Death agrees. The best part is that the deli owner tells them it’s on the house. 

_Life can’t get much better than this_ , she thinks.

They’re outdoors, soaking up the energy of the people around them and the last moments of the fall sunshine, before the city turns bitterly cold in the winter. They’re eating on a bench somewhere in the Plateau when he asks about her tattoo under her right eye.

“Oh, this old thing?” she points. “It’s a wadjet - the Eye of Horus. It’s a sigil of healing and resurrection.”

“But, if you’re Death, how can you represent life?”

“Good question. It’s complicated, but not. The afterlife is simply another journey,” she shrugs.

She’s about to launch into what exactly that journey entails when a poster on the street wall catches her eye. “Where did you say she dances now, Scott?”

“My Tessa, you mean? I think she’s at the National Ballet in Toronto.” 

“Have you ever watched her dance?”

“Never,” he shakes his head, a little ruefully.

“That’s going to change tonight!” she crows.

He looks bewildered, but he knows better than to expect the ordinary from her by now. She points to the direction of the poster. And there it is, as plain as the writing on the wall. The National Ballet of Canada is visiting, and they’re performing for only two nights. Tonight will be their last performance in Montreal at Les Grands Ballets.

“You can’t know that she’ll be there!” he scoffs. 

“Yes, I do.”

“Is this another one of your uncanny omniscient tricks?” 

She rolls her eyes, “No Scott, it’s called the internet. Look it up and buy the damn tickets.”

After he’s sheepishly bought the tickets - indeed, Canada’s most eminent prima ballerina Tessa Virtue will be performing - information which makes his stomach flip flop in a curious way - they stroll down towards the river.

Death stops outside the Notre-Dame Basilica, and cocks her head, as if to say, _Let’s go inside_.

“Oh, hell no.” He still has a complicated relationship with religion. He doesn’t understand the concept of a God who can create so much beauty yet wreak so much pain.

“C’mon. You’re not going to disintegrate if you go in. We’re just going to admire the architecture.”

He goes along, but he isn’t thrilled. Death, on the other hand, marvels at the strikingly beautiful chapel in the back, the gold altar, beautiful art works, and the stained glass windows. She wishes they could stay for the light show later that evening, but the ballet is much more of a priority.

She joins him at one of the pews. “Did you know that this is where Celine Dion got married?”

“Huh.”

She places her hand above his. “They’re alright, Scott - your loved ones. In the end, I come for you all. Religion has nothing to do with it. Faith, on the other hand…”

He wipes a tear that gathers in the corner of his eye and nods.

“You want to get out of here? We need to get changed for the ballet!”

***

Scott marvels at the good seats he’s managed to get. He’s never been to the ballet, never had time before, except to work with several dance choreographers during his career. He’s got a large bouquet of flowers on his knee, having picked them out at the florist near his apartment earlier.He’ll get one of the ushers to deliver them to Tessa after the performance.

Peonies are perfect, Death told him. Dark pink. For honour, respect and love.

She had cut her thumb on a thorn when she’d enthusiastically grabbed at some roses to show Scott. She hissed at the sting at first, the pain throbbing and exquisite. Then she watched, riveted, as drops of blood rolled down her Mount of Venus.

Crimson against pale flesh.

It occurs to her that this is the essence and life force of mortals. Their bodies are a battleground between mind and heart. Their stories told through the red ink of their blood.

The florist hadn’t allowed him to pay for the flowers. She thought it was for his ‘charming companion’, as she put it.

“Do you always get things for free?” he asks, curious. “First breakfast, then lunch, now the flowers.”

“Oh, I pay. Everyone does in the end.”

The first programme the company is dancing to is Jerome Robbin’s _In the Night_ , a classical ballet piece composed of three parts, set to the music of Chopin. The second is a highly celebrated contemporary group creation choreographed by Canadian Crystal Pite called _Seasons’ Canon_ , using the music of Vivaldi recomposed by Max Richter.

He’s struck by the beauty and grace of the first two ballet pairs, but the moment Tessa, _his Tessa_ , steps foot on stage in her scarlet-tinged costume, it’s as if the entire world falls away. She’s mesmerising in her movements, from the tips of her fingers to the point of her feet. Her dark hair is scraped back into a bun, highlighting her cheek bones and widow’s peak, her body sculpted by her métier as much as it is by her poise and finesse.

Scintillating. Cosmic. Strong.

In that vivid moment of realisation, he doesn’t question anymore her decision to leave him and ice dance behind to forge a career in ballet. She was born to do this. Just as sure as he was begot to take the ice.

Death turns to look at him during Tessa’s performance. There’s a hint of her androgynous sibling Desire in his eyes, but more than anything, there’s love, admiration, and hope.

She turns back to the stage to watch the performance unfold before her and she is swept away. She’s watched the best of them, known them intimately too. Nureyev, Pavlova, Fonteyn, Balanchine. Tessa has that same fire, one that’s destined for greatness. It’s the same fire that got her through the years of Compartment Syndrome anguish, two surgeries that sliced her legs open, and the desolation of learning to walk, let alone dance again. Her performance is a tour de force of classical ballet technique, powerful, passionate, and virtuous. She understands now why Scott hadn’t been able to let go.

After intermission, the second programme starts.

Inspired by nature and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, the dancers come together as an entity to emote and express the phenomena of the physical world.

They flow, they jolt, they live, they breathe.

They hover as a swarm, roll as a wave, reach as plants that grow, fall as gently as rain, birth as a new being coming into the world, and perish as slowly as the silent decay of creation itself.

It’s hypnotic. It’s chaotic. Complex. In effect, it’s everything Life and Death are in movement.

Every hundred years, Death is given a day to fully immerse in her physical manifestation. Sometimes she chooses the downtrodden, sometimes the privileged, sometimes the content, at other times the discontent, the lonely, and the loved. In every moment, she’s always felt the thread of something greater weaving through each and every tapestry of life she’s come in contact with, and taken.

Watching this now she knows what it is. It makes her hair stand on end.

It’s _connection_. Pure and simple.

Scott looks over and slips his fingers through hers. And her tears begin to fall.

***

They walk all night after the show, grabbing craft beers and some poutine for a light dinner. He doesn’t think they’ve stopped talking since they met this morning, save for the enforced hush in the concert hall at Les Grand Ballets. She couldn’t have talked even if she had wanted to, so choked up with emotion as she was.

They walk by the Old Port, the river and somehow they end up at La Ronde, where the amusement park is.

“We should sneak in!” she whispers, almost drunk on exhilaration. Watching the ballet has left her raw and wide open.

“But it’s closed. We’ll get caught.”

“Oh don’t be a poltroon, live a little!” she laughs, as she kicks off her heels at last (how the hell do people walk all day in them?) and runs towards the park’s Carousel.

It’s ironic. Death, telling him to live.

He can’t help but scamper after her and join her laughter. It’s not the first time today, but it has been a very long time since he’s felt this alive. She’s twirling around, already finding her way to one of the horses and the Carousel inexplicably whirs to life, lights on and music playing. He watches her from the ground, admiring her effervescence. If Death could love life in all its strange, peripheral and wondrous ways, so too, perhaps, could he.

After a few turns, she jumps off, hunting for something with a singular focus. When he catches up to her, she’s at the base of the Ferris wheel, looking around for a way to turn the damn thing on.

The operator control station is locked, but somehow she manages to open it. There’s no key in sight, but she places her hand on one of the controls and everything lights up.

“Whoa.” He takes a step back. “How the hell did you do that?”

She raises her eyebrows as if to ask him why he still doesn’t believe who she is.

The Ferris wheel starts up slow, the hum of the machinery breaking the quietness of the night. She’s left the lights off the ride so that no one’s the wiser to them being there.

“Your carriage awaits, Monsieur,” she makes a small bow and takes her top hat off with a flourish, as she opens the door to the gondola. 

“Why, thank you Mademoiselle,” he takes her hand, leading her in first and closes the door behind them.

“This is fun,” she says. “This whole day was fun.”

She turns to him. “You know, I can’t remember when in the last millennia that I’ve had such a great time. Thank you for making it so special. You’ve been the best tour guide ever.”

“Hey,” he squeezes her hand. “You’re the one who made it momentous, Tessa. Truly.”

She smiles and they look out onto the twinkling views of the entire city, fingers entwined. There’s the Grande Roue in Old Montreal, but this little Ferris wheel feels so much more personal.

The panorama is breathtaking, in fact. They might have spent minutes watching the horizon, or it could have been hours. 

It feels transcendent.

The longer they sit there the faster it feels like time is circling back to when she first met him yesterday. The light in the sky is changing and she can feel the energy around them shimmer and transfigure too.

“Scott…we’re friends, right?” For the first time since he’s met her she sounds uncertain.

It’s strange to think of Death as a friend, but it’s almost comforting. “Yes, I’d like to think so.”

“So you’ll do me a favour if I ask you?”

“Sure. Why not?” He doesn’t even hesitate. She’s already done so much for him.

She stays quiet for a while. He waits.

And then, “Will you kiss me?”

He’s a little surprised, but then not. Despite the duality of her wise naïveté and sunny stoicism, he’s sure that Death must get lonely sometimes.

He leans towards her and takes off her top hat, laying it gently on the seat beside them. He curls his fingers lightly in her dark hair, cradling her head with both of his hands.

When he kisses her it’s a gentle sweep across her lips. Delicate, dulcet, and above all, _life-affirming_. It’s the perfect end to her once-in-a-century mortal iteration.

“She’s a lucky lady,” she murmurs after.

“Hmmm?” he didn’t hear her.

 _You’ll find out soon enough_ , she thinks.

“Scott?”

“Yeah?” he’s leaning his forehead against hers, his eyes closed, his breathing calm. He’s never felt peace like this before. Except when he watched his Tessa dance earlier. 

“You get what everyone gets. A lifetime. So live it well.”

There’s a flurried sound of feathers and in that moment, she’s gone.

He blinks a few times to make sure he isn’t seeing things. It wasn’t a dream, her top hat is resting right next to him.

He feels a profound and chasmic sense of loss, but he also feels the lightness of rebirth. He understands now that there are no guarantees in this brief life. He only gets so many years on this rock, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t make the most of it.

He also knows he’ll see her again one day.

When the Ferris wheel stops, he gets off and retraces their steps along the river in the slow warmth of dawn and swirling mist. His mind is a jumble of thoughts, so he puts on his earphones. 

_Feet don’t fail me now, take me to your finish line, oh my heart it breaks every step that I take, but I’m hoping that the gates, they’ll tell me that you’re mine, walking through the city streets, is it by mistake or design? I feel so alone on a Friday night, can you make it feel like home if I tell you you’re mine?_

He’s so engrossed in the melancholy of the music and replaying the last 24 hours that he almost doesn’t notice a lone figure up ahead.

She’s dressed in a tulle skirt, and wrapped up tight in a leather jacket, looking out towards the river. She has been walking all night, reading and re-reading a small golden letterpress card filled with a sloppy scrawl of words.

 _Brava, my beautiful T. You did it kiddo!_

In her arms is a large bouquet of peonies, their ruffled petals bleeding pink like blood. Like love.

He draws a sharp breath in. His lips curl into an ebullient smile, as he throws a salute into the wind and grips the rim of the top hat with his fingers.

He takes a step closer. It’s the first step of the rest of his life.

**Author's Note:**

> You know what to do, send me love here or on Twitter @lapetitemort20 x


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